Rick and Michael Mast's artisanal, bean-to-bar chocolate is used in high-end restaurants and can be found at well-curated markets worldwide.

To look at Michael and Rick Mast, two lanky, bearded thirtysomethings with a thing for pioneer-chic clothing, is to gaze on a food movement personified. The brothers behind Mast Brothers Chocolate may be Iowa-raised, but Brooklyn—with its entrepreneurial, artisanal-everything vibe—is their spiritual home. The pair started experimenting with chocolate there in 2006: “We were doing all sorts of brewing, pickling, baking of things,” says older brother Rick. “And then came chocolate.”

They realized they could make amazing stuff from just cocoa beans and cane sugar (creative additions like Maine sea salt and serrano chile came later)—not to mention a business. Today, their bean-to-bar chocolate is found at well-curated markets worldwide and used in high-end restaurants like Per Se. They even published Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook last fall. In all, pretty sweet.

We caught up with Rick Mast about the universal favorite food, the rise of the Brooklyn food dude, and how the maestro behind everyone else's Valentine's Day celebrates his own.

Out of all the foods you were curious about—pickles, beer, cured meats—why chocolate?

Chocolate really is the most popular food in the world. Everywhere you go, when you say the word "chocolate", people just start smiling. It's this thing everyone loves and talks about and eats all the time and has childhood memories of, and nobody really knows how it's made. So we thought, since we've made everything else, let's see if we can make chocolate in our apartment. And we were successful pretty early on. Even the first primitive batches were still some of the best chocolate we'd ever tasted because it just seemed so fresh and complex. It was so fun to have a big burlap sack full of beans in our living room and to really connect ourselves with that. It started becoming sort of a thing: these brothers that are making chocolate from scratch in their apartment.

When you started in 2006, you were among the first artisanal food vendors at weekend markets. Did you feel like you were on the vanguard of something?

We could feel it. People were excited about what we were doing—they were hungry for more and more and more. And the community sort of rose up around it. Even when I was just a hobby food-lover in the apartment, we were hanging out with Bob McClure as he was just starting McClure's Pickles. And we were hanging out at the same bar talking about what kind of cool projects we'd like to do. This is definitely before being a Brooklyn food person was a thing. But you could feel the momentum coming. You felt like you were part of something bigger than your own project

Did you feel there was some sort of reputation to reclaim on behalf of American-made chocolate, versus more renowned European chocolates?

Exactly. And I think that even beyond any sort of patriotic sense, we were trying to reintroduce chocolate to everyone. People need to not see chocolate as this separate category of food that can't be explored and enjoyed, that you can immerse yourself in just like you would anything from your typical farmers' market. It should be something that connects you to the ingredients, where the flavors are complex and connected to the region that they're from. You understand how its made, and someone in your neighborhood makes it. We brought it out of a mysterious, faraway, enormous factory and brought it to the human scale.

What's it like working with your brother?

Do you have siblings?

I do, and I can't imagine running a business with one.

____Anybody with siblings, well, you know. We're very different, but we work to each others' strengths. The thing we say a lot is that there's nobody that you're going to fight harder with than your family, but there's nobody that you're going to fight harder for than your family. So when things get tough, you've always got that unconditional love from your brother.

Who does what in the business?

My brother might tell you different, but I basically do everything.

Well Michael's not here, so it's your call.

Exactly. No, my focus tends to be more on the food and creative side of the operation. My brother's background is in accounting, so he tends to be more on the financial side.

Do you have anything special planned for Valentine's Day?

We're throwing a party at the workshop with Scribe Winery, based in Sonoma. We're going to do a bunch of classic Valentine's Day stuff, like chocolate-covered cherry cordials, paired with some great wines. Valentine's Day is a busy work day for me. I think my wife and I will try to find time to maybe go out to a late dinner or something like that, but my commitment is to curate a romantic experience for the rest of the world.

If you weren't in charge of everyone else's Valentine's Day, how would you celebrate?

One of my first loves is cooking, so I think my wife would probably say that I'm at my most romantic when I stay home and cook for her and make her favorite foods. That was my first date with her. Nothing too fancy: I made really hearty, comfort foods, just to make sure she liked the same type of foods I like. And now I cook something similar—like pork chops, mashed potatoes, and Brussels sprouts—pretty much every anniversary of our first date.

Can you still give your wife chocolate?

She is still thrilled when I bring home chocolate. So I've got that going for me.